regret

verb

1. To feel sorry about (a thing that has or has not happened), afterthink: to wish that a thing had not happened, that something else had happened instead.

   “He regretted his words.”

   “I don't regret enrolling in law, but I regret not studying some Chinese.”

   “Judge Short had gone to town, and Farrar was off for a three days' cruise up the lake. I was bitterly regretting I had not gone with him when the distant notes of a coach horn reached my ear, and I descried a four-in-hand winding its way up the inn road from the direction of Mohair.”

   “Dear humanity, we regret bein' alien bastards, we regret comin' to Earth, and we most definitely regret the Corps just blew up our raggedy-ass fleet!”

2. (broadly)To feel sorry about (any thing).

   “I regret that I have to do this, but I don't have a choice.”

   “They said they regretted to inform us that the train would be late.”

3. (archaic, transitive)To miss; to feel the loss or absence of; to mourn.

   “He more than ever regretted his home, and with increased desire longed to see his family.”

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)Emotional pain on account of something done or experienced in the past, with a wish that it had been different; a looking back with dissatisfaction or with longing.

   “What man does not remember with regret the first time he read Robinson Crusoe?”

   “Never any prince expressed a more lively regret for the loss of a servant.”

   “From its peaceful bosom [the grave] spring none but fond regrets and tender recollections.”

2. (countable, obsolete, uncountable)Dislike; aversion.

   “Is it a vertue to have some ineffective regrets to damnation, and such a Vertue too, as shall serve to ballance all our vices?”

3. (countable, uncountable)The amount of avoidable loss that results from choosing the wrong action.

   “Under squared errorloss we show that there exists unique minimax regret solution for the problem of selecting the threshold.”

   “Each loss then represents this unavoidable loss plus a regret (loss due to ignorance of Ө). Subtracting these unavoidable losses, we obtain the regret table, Table 1.7, and the average regret table, Table 1.8.”

4. (countable, uncountable)A person invited to an event who was unable to attend, but notified the organizer of this beforehand; a nonattendee.